NEW YORK – According to a letter filed by the government in court today, the
CIA acknowledged it destroyed 92 tapes of interrogations. The admission comes in
an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit seeking records of the treatment of
prisoners in U.S. custody abroad. In December 2007, the ACLU filed a motion to
hold the CIA in contempt for its destruction of videotapes recording the harsh
interrogation of prisoners in violation of a court order requiring the agency to
produce or identify all the requested records. That motion is still pending.

The following can be attributed to Amrit Singh, staff attorney with the
ACLU:

"This letter provides further evidence for holding the CIA in contempt of
court. The large number of videotapes destroyed confirms that the agency engaged
in a systemic attempt to hide evidence of its illegal interrogations and to
evade the court's order. Our contempt motion has been pending in court for over
a year now – it is time to hold the CIA accountable for its flagrant disregard
for the rule of law."

The tapes, which show CIA operatives subjecting suspects to extremely harsh
interrogation methods, should have been identified and processed for the ACLU in
response to its FOIA request demanding information on the treatment and
interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody. The tapes were also withheld from
the 9/11 Commission, appointed by former President Bush and Congress, which had
formally requested that the CIA hand over transcripts and recordings documenting
the interrogation of CIA prisoners.